The Cambridge & South East Cambs

Branch of the UK Independence Party

EU: We Have Plans For You (Part 2)

What Will happen if we stay in the EU

In Part One of this series, we looked at the impact of staying in the EU on our sovereignty. In Part Two, we look at the economics of staying, including trade, jobs and the costs of EU membership.

1. The EU’s trade with the rest of the world will continue to fall

Despite being the world’s largest trading bloc, the EU is declining as an economic force.

The extent of this is illustrated by two simple facts:

The EU’s share of global GDP is falling – from 30% in 2003 to 24% in 2013

British dependency on EU trade is at a record low – from 55% in 1997 to 45% in 2014

This will be critical for our economy. We have no power to develop bi-lateral trade agreements while we are in the EU, so we can only address this decline by leaving and forging our own trade deals as an independent member of the World Trade Organisation.

If we stay, we will only be able to watch as the EU’s trade with the rest of the world continues to fall – and ours with it.

2. The EU will continue destroying jobs

The EU and many leftwing politicians within it will tell you that your job is safer in the EU.

For example, Glenis Willmott, leader of the UK Labour delegation in the European Parliament commented, “In terms of jobs, security and rights, Britain and Britons are better off in the EU and that is why we will be campaigning to stay”

The opposite is true.

For example, all through the EU youth unemployment is rife. Only one country - yes, you’ve guessed it, Germany - has youth unemployment below 10%. At the top end of the scale is Greece with an unbelievable 49%, Spain 46%, Italy 38%, France at 26% and the Eurozone itself at 22%.

The lives of a whole generation of young people are being destroyed. And all because the EU is fanatically imposing the same failed economic policy on so many different economies.

When the living wage reaches £9 per hour in the whole of the UK (it’s already there in London), it will act like a magnet to so many young people whose lives have been blighted by the EU’s disastrous policies. No one will blame them for coming here but it will put downward pressure on wages as the supply of labour exceeds demand.

It doesn’t need a genius to work out that your job may be at risk and if not your job then your standard of living. That is how the EU market works.

3. Our contribution to the EU will continue to rise

The UK already pays at least £250 million each week into the EU’s coffers. The latest figures show that in 2015, the UK contributed £13 billion to the EU and received £4.5 billion in return. This is, of course, on condition that we spend it as the EU dictates.

No wonder they want us to stay.

Our contribution has increased dramatically from 1975 when we joined the European Economic Community – and there is no sign of it going down. On the contrary, the website Politico recently reported that EU officials were deliberately holding back on announcing further increases in member state contributions out of fear they might fuel support for a Brexit.

Among these increases is a mid-term review of the EU’s seven-year budget, which could result in a fight over a proposal to increase EU spending by €20 billion. Never mind that EU economies are in dire straights, there is always room for more spending, particularly when the EU can put its hands into the UK taxpayers’ pockets.

Do you remember the last time the UK was forced to stump more than it had bargained for?

In 2014, the EU ordered the UK to pay an extra £1.7 billion towards the EU budget because the economy had performed better than expected. The table below shows just how much the UK was hammered by this retrospective and unexpected order from Brussels:

Losers

Extra sum to pay

UK

£ 1,676 million

Netherlands

£ 506 million

Italy

£ 268 million

Greece

£ 70 million

Cyprus

£ 33 million

So the UK had to pay three times more than any other contributor, not to mention that the EU thought it was a good idea to impose extra economic suffering on two of its poorest member states.

Who were the countries who gained the most?

Winners

Reduction

France

£ 801 million

Germany

£ 614 million

Denmark

£ 253 million

Poland

£ 249 million

Austria

£ 232 million

Now there’s a surprise. Of course, Cameron vowed we would never pay but, after weeks of bluster, guess what? Yes – we paid up.

And there will be more to come.

4. The cost of EU rules will continue to damage UK businesses

Based on an analysis of UK Government Impact Assessments, Open Europe estimates that the cost of the 100 most burdensome regulations to the UK economy stands at £33.3 billion in 2014 prices.

This is more than the £27 billion that the UK Treasury expects to raise in revenue from the Council Tax in the 2014-15 financial year.

The UK could reduce this massive cost by:

Taking back its seat on the key global bodies and negotiating better terms

Repeal existing laws after it leaves the EU

Introduce a new regulatory framework that is designed specifically for the UK

Review unwanted social regulation

The strength of the UK lies in its Small and Medium Enterprises i.e. small companies who, despite never doing business outside the UK, are bound by these onerous rules.

Business for Britain has two case studies of the unnecessary burdens that this places on such businesses here.

5. The Euro will continue to fail and we will be forced to join

The Euro is doomed to be a weak currency. Who says so? None other than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In a detailed report, which coincides with this week’s slump in the value of the Euro, the OECD has concluded that the single currency will not prosper without sweeping economic reforms across the EU.

Among its other findings, the OECD has commented that:

The Euro cannot function without a genuine single market, which is years away

There is not enough labour flexibility across the EU to make the currency work

Far from converging, the EU member state economies are actually diverging

The introduction of the Euro has pushed up prices

The Euro’s performance on the markets has been disappointing, losing 25% of its value against the dollar since its launch

Price transparency has disappeared, with commodities differing in price across the Eurozone instead of converging

The Euro is vulnerable to external shocks that affect some countries more than others

It concludes that most of the Eurozone remains stifled by cumbersome regulations, rigid labour markets and high operating costs.

Of course, the EU will maintain that the answer to these problems is more integration not less. The member states are all required to join the Euro when they meet the required criteria, with the exception of the UK and Denmark. How long will it be, under pressure from the remaining members, before we are required to join?

The answer is that, if we vote to stay in, the EU will slowly but surely make it impossible for us to stay out.

Indeed, Cameron has signed up to this process already by agreeing that the UK will not block legal and policy moves to bring the Eurozone members closer together.

Eventually, it will be our turn – a chilling prospect.

This article started by looking at Project Fear – the Government’s attempts to scaremonger so much that it will frighten the electorate into voting to stay.

In fact, their campaign should be called Project Serfdom – a naked attempt to convince the British public that they are better off staying when the truth is that we will be at the mercy of an unelected, anti-democratic and unaccountable elite who will continue to erode our freedoms and take our money.

Make no mistake - we are at a cross roads in the destiny of this nation.

Do we vote to stay part of a European Union?

Or do we vote, as the world’s fifth largest economy, to determine our own future based on the democratic and legal structures of the United Kingdom and our historical strengths as a trading nation?